Lincoln Elementary celebrates 100 years

May 2—Lincoln Elementary opened its doors to students in 1923, and 100 years later, invited current students, parents, teachers, faculty, alumni and the community to celebrate the milestone.

Nearly 500 people dropped by Lincoln, 915 Classen Blvd., on Saturday for an evening of food, fun, speeches and reminiscing.

In preparation for the centennial anniversary, Diane Wood, the school's gifted and talented and math remediation teacher, gathered old newspapers and put together a book of Lincoln sources and memories.

"When the pandemic happened in 2020, I got on newspapers.com and realized that The Norman Transcript was on there, and so I did tons of research on Lincoln, finding out everything I could about the school, and created a Google Drive, not knowing exactly what I was going to do with it," Wood said.

In her research, she learned about the school, as well as what life was like in the 1920s when the first Lincoln students attended.

Last year, she gave access to the Google Drive folder to Sara Doolittle, mother of a Lincoln fourth-grader, who took the sources and wrote the book.

A former student laid out the pages of the book, now called "100 Years of Lincoln," which was sold during the centennial commemoration for $20.

"Once I saw all the historical documents Diane had pulled together, I knew that we needed to do something with it," Doolittle said. "We kicked around a lot of ideas in our committee, which has been meeting all year."

The book is still available for purchase at the school's office.

As part of the project, the fourth graders took these historical documents and prepared narratives that were turned into an 11-episode podcast.

"They were able to draw from those folders, then I drew from the folders to put together the narrative of the school throughout the decades," Doolittle said. "We organized it around themes: holidays and celebrations, activities, sports and so on."

The project taught current students historical methods and preservation. It also gave them a view into the past.

"There's always going to be elements of student life, like a Halloween party, so the kids in 2023 could feel connected to the kids in 1923," Doolittle said.

Michale Gentry, a fourth-grade teacher, worked with Doolittle to create the podcast, which has not been made public because of privacy concerns.

"We collaborated with Diane to just explore the neighborhood, the legacy trail, and artifacts around Lincoln," Gentry said.

Students learned the difference between primary and secondary sources. School administrators shared historical pictures to local Norman history Facebook pages, and alumni emerged, asking to be interviewed.

"We had interviews here at the school, we had interviews via Zoom, and we had people sending in memories via email. So, we had a plethora of stories to weave into this podcast," Gentry said. "It has really helped students not only just do this podcast, but really look at primary sources with a critical eye and engage with what might sometimes seem boring to a modern day student."

Students learned about the underpass, which ran underneath Classen Boulevard.

"So they built the underpass in 1930 and then used it for tornado drills, even when school wasn't in session," Wood said. "The entire neighborhood would get down into the underpass when a tornado was close."

She said the underpass was built because students relied on walking to and from school. At the time, there was no cafeteria, so kids would return home to eat, and occasionally they were struck by vehicles.

Wood said Lincoln holds a special meaning to those who attend, have attended and the community surrounding it.

"We are the hidden gem," Wood said. "We only have two teachers at each grade level, so we get to know every student that walks through the door. It's really a family environment."

About 30% of the students attending don't live in the district, according to Gentry and Wood, including Doolittle's fourth-grader.

"We transferred my son to Lincoln because of the community, atmosphere, diversity, the arts focus, and the size."

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.